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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27717 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Harrison Butker's commencement speech (transcript) is probably the most politically incorrect public exposition I've ever heard from a (relatively) public non-political figure. Butker is the Kansas City Chief's placekicker, and a devout Catholic. He hits nearly all the culture war hot topics: abortion, pride month, women's role in society, the Covid response, and Biden's leadership or lack thereof.

While the mainstream and new media are universal in their condemnation of this speech, the NFL up to this point is merely "distancing" itself from Butker's viewpoints. If Butker's career can survive intact, this seems to be further evidence in favor of the "vibe-shift". Indeed, he may have shifted the Overton window himself: he mentions his "teammate's girlfriend" (Taylor Swift); and simply by being on the same team as Travis Kelce, Butker's beliefs has the potential to be platformed to the millions of women who have started following the Chiefs.

Courage is contagious: the more people who stand up to the regime, the easier it becomes for others to do so. In my own small way, I signed a petition in support of Butker under my real name. While this seems a small risk to take, it isn't one I would have countenanced four years ago.

It's quite interesting how even the Catholics in the US are Protestants in spirit. Butker says again and again you can't choose your faith, but at the same time is eager to criticize the priests and the bishops and I think he would gladly criticize the Pope himself if he could get away with it. Butker, your discontent is profane in nature, while their ordainment was divine. How can a sheep criticize his shepherd? What good is a shepherd that accepts runaway sheep into his flock instead of sending them back?

Butker's speech has got so many people up in a frenzy about the content that over 200,000 people have signed a "petition" on Change.org to get him removed from the Kansas City Chiefs.

What do these articles or the descriptions on change.org have in common? Creating a strawman of the content of his speech. The change.org petition description literally doesn't even give any examples of what he says, it just characterizes his speech as "sexist, homophobic, anti-trans, anti-abortion and racist."

Graduation speeches are for the people who are graduating, not for the entire world. He was giving a speech at a Catholic college to Catholic students, who presumably have Catholic values. The biggest criticism against his speech is in regard to his statement about women:

For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.

I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.

This statement is literally followed by a huge round of applause, so clearly, the audience listening to the speech, which includes women, was very responsive to his message to them specifically.

He never says women should only be a homemakers. In fact, he even acknowledges women can have successful careers. All he does is praise women who choose to be a homemaker and a mother. Butker is absolutely correct in his statements about women being lied to that pursuing a career is much more worthwhile than motherhood, based on the behavior and happiness of actual women.

I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.

Based and C.S. Lewis pilled:

“I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus. But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? As Dr Johnson said, ‘To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour’. We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist.” - Narnia dude.

What I’ve never understood is why exactly this sort of thing makes sense to the left. The man is a kicker on a football team. He doesn’t really get paid to be a spokesman for anything beyond the usual shilling for products. I don’t understand why a person isn’t allowed to hold contrary opinions especially when those opinions have absolutely nothing to do with his actual job and he doesn’t seem to be much of an activist at all.

Because he spoke heresy. And in fairness if Butker he wouldn't be a principled defender of free speech either.

What surprised me most in the reaction was this amusing line:

Butker’s statement explicitly argues that there’s a correct way to be Catholic, even though in reality, most Catholics are supportive of abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Well... yes.

Yes, there's a correct way to be Catholic. It involves believing and acting in accordance with Catholic teaching, which is very clear on some of those subjects.

How is that controversial?

It also involves listening to the Argentinian socialist in Rome, which American Catholics often seem to chafe at.

No, it does not involve any of that even if you talk about papal infallibility doctrine that was so far used twice in history. Catholics do not have to listen to whatever pope says in some interview. So far Catholic Church is against gay marriages in line with Persona Humana doctrine. Just couple of excerpts:

At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the moral sense of the Christian people.

But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.[18] This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.

The church is certainly still against both gay marriage and abortion, nevertheless the official position is still more conciliatory on many of these social issues than US tradcaths are happy with.

The extent to which Catholicism requires agreeing with the pope is regularly contested along partisan lines.

Usually one side argues, "The pope is the vicar of Christ and visible leader of the church, from whom we learn and to whom we have an obligation to listen, and his words should be taken to heart by all Catholics", and the other side argues, "The pope is a human being and capable of error in ordinary circumstances, and there have been shockingly bad popes in the past. Respect for the papal office does not entail unthinking obedience to every off-the-cuff statement a pope makes, and good Catholics can and should, in obedience to sacred tradition, disagree with him where necessary".

And the two sides switch depending on whether or not they like the current pope or not. There is very little consistency.

Across the board, Butker's sin is holding up a mirror. Yes, most women would be happier supporting their successful, loving husband than drudging through a fake email job. Yes, you're a bad Catholic if you support the commission of grave sins.

Yes, there's a correct way to be Catholic. It involves believing and acting in accordance with Catholic teaching, which is very clear on some of those subjects.

At least as an empirical matter, no one seems to actually do this. Culture-war Catholicism seems to center around deciding which portions to ignore.

Yes, that's where you'll find the majority of culture war Catholicism. What is the Catholic Church? Is it what Catholics actually do or believe? Is it the doctrine of the church? What is the doctrine of the church, and who defines it, and that way lies a whole debate around tradition, magisterium, the papacy, and more.

I tend to think those things are secondary and partisans tend to flip flop on them whenever it suits them.

Take a look at the left wing catholic framing of the church’s teachings on capital punishment and compare it to their approach to teachings on the family.

All those debates about magisterium seem very contingent to me.

I read the speech and I have to say it almost made me want to convert to Latin Mass Catholicism.

What I was especially drawn to was the image of traditional values winning vs. how I personally tend to wallow in more negative news.

Butker seems to be almost perfect. I assume the media is desperately searching, so he's likely been faithful to his wife and probably hasn't said "nigger" within recording distance. As Nybbler points out, he's got literally a gigachad look. It might be cooler if he were a tight end, but he's arguably one of the best kickers in the game with three Super Bowls. He's not perfectly articulate, but articulate enough, and his speech avoided some of the pitfalls conservatives love to jump into. It was very digestible if anyone wanted to watch the whole thing and more coherent than Margery Taylor Greene or Trump can be. It also helps that he kept things straight Catholic; going all in against Catholicism is attacking a lot of Latinos.

Conservatives should spend a lot of time figuring out the things he got right.

It might be cooler if he were a tight end, but he's arguably one of the best kickers in the game with three Super Bowls.

Even this part has had a pretty funny element, with dumpy, unathletic haters suggesting that being a kicker means he's not very athletic. In reality, he was a D1 soccer player at Georgia Tech, indicating a high level of dynamic athleticism and conditioning. He's also one of the most fashionable guys in the league (google "Harrison Butker suits" for examples).

At the same time I think evangelicals are probably thinking "based trad cath" and I'm not sure how true this is across trad caths but for the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen cousin in the family he is a straight theocrat that what would violently suppress all other denominations if he could. If his beliefs were common among pre-Vatican II Catholics I can see why they were discriminated against.

Liberal Democracy is basically only possible if people are some sort of creedal, Reformed Christian. You can have any creed you want, Episcopalian, Methodist, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist, etc. but you have to conform to the social and theological norms of Reformed Christianity. Shariah Law and Halakah just aren't compatible with Western society and can only be tolerated when they are tiny minorities.

Yes, prior to Vatican II and especially prior to 1900 or so, the traditional Catholic position was basically that the state should formally endorse the Catholic Church, obey directives from the Vatican, and tolerate other religious positions either provisionally or not at all. Integralism is, broadly speaking, the traditional Roman position. If you ever get interested in the last two centuries of Spanish, French, or Italian history you will notice this causing a great deal of trouble. It's also responsible for a lot of traditional American (and Anglo in generally) anti-Catholicism. Taken seriously, it is the position that leads to drama like this.

However, Catholics, partly because of how extreme this position seems today, have largely been running away from it in the West, or have been looking for ways to reconcile Catholicism with American liberal values. Some have been more or less successful with this.

But anyway, if you dig into the European history a bit, 'discriminated against' is underselling it. This is/was a position that causes civil wars.

The CMRI are fringe nut jobs who bought holy orders from the mafia and consider other tradCaths apostates.

Many tradcaths seem to consider other tradcaths apostates especially because there’s a big gradation in terms of their relationship with the actual church as an institution (see FSSP vs SSPX), views on the pope and so on.

The CMRI are particularly hardline sedevacantists who result from a schism in a group that was rejected from joining the SSPX due to their leadership’s insanity, and then split in two, to reunify after one side’s leaders were literally arrested for arms trafficking and the other side’s had their episcopal ordinations arranged by the mafia. Even by the standards of sedevacantists, who are themselves a fairly small fringe group among IRL tradCaths, they’re cult-y and on the fringe.

As for the SSPX-FSSP split, both sets of leadership hype it up to the media for realpolitik purposes and the recent trend seems to strike a less-hostile tone towards one another in internally-directed communications, and de facto have long ignored their congregations tending to go back and forth. SSPX couples marry at FSSP parishes more often than at their own(for obtuse canon law reasons), for one example. Particularly since williamson’s departure, the SSPX and its dependent groups/the FSSP and similar groups are closer to each other than either is to anyone else. And together they make up an enormous supermajority of tradCaths.

I love how social and mainstream media pearlclutching over Butker has pretty much catapulted him to being the third most famous Chief via the Streisand effect. I’d never heard of him before this.

I still have no interest in listening to his speech, looking into his opinions (they’re probably kind of stupid), or watching him or the NFL in general, but he’s making the usual insufferables seethe so I like him. I’ll just donate my ki from afar like he’s Goku charging up a Spirit Bomb.

It helps that most of his fellow NFL players have greater idpol protections and hold views that are even more politically incorrect about women and 2SLGBTQIA+ (views that are sometimes physically expressed to the former in a fiery, but mostly peaceful manner). However, they just don’t have the desire or ability to introspect on a worldview and go around giving speeches. So Butker likely enjoys some low-key solidarity.

The Chiefs as Superbowl champions in an OT victory and the biggest hotbed of off-field drama, gossip, and lolcowery? Maybe the NFL is indeed fixed like boxing, instead of real like pro-wrestling.

Yeah, what is it with Chiefs-related news lately? They're also the team for whom a Deadspin reporter went to a game and decided to defame a 9-year-old in team colors bodypaint, and got Deadspin sued as a result. All these things happening all at once, and centered around people and events conspicuously connected to this one team ... would be an interesting coincidence.

Butker was already the third most famous chief, albeit by more distance; he scored the OT points for two superbowl victories and had been in the news for some feel-good society pages stories.

It’s like the inverse of the Mitch Hedberg joke. “I’m now the third most famous player on the Chiefs. I already was before, but I still am now, too.”

He's almost got the face of the gigachad. He had to have done that on purpose.

I got a couple upvotes on reddit replying to a post “with bad guy Butker whose the evilest player in the nfl”

Good Guy: Butker Bad Guy: too many to name

I am not sure if the Overton window of NFL player conduct has really changed that much. I think most Americans have always had some support for traditional values and even more support a religious community to do their own thing. Explicitly stating this publicly though was banned for a while.

This also has me thinking about the right to free association. Which has largely been deleted from the U.S. constitution. I largely support a right to free association but it feels like it does need some limits. I would like a company to be able to fire some one for any reason they want. If you get promoted to CEO and your personal view is that Indians are smelly vile creatures and want to fire them just because they are Indian I want you to have that right. And ideally those Indians you don’t like get scooped up by your competitor and build a better product.

Butker’s case provides the counter-point. If the NFL decided they don’t want Catholics playing in their league who do real Catholic things and fired Butker it would cause him real harm. Go start your own football league is not viable. This happens with a lot of product too. If Microsoft decided no Jews can use excel that would be an irreplaceable loss. Jews of course could build their own excel software, but since every other organization uses excel the Jewish excel would not be compatible with the Gentile Excel used by everyone else. They could not be accountants or investment bankers because all their clients would be using Gentile Excel.

Of course Courts can come up with tests to distinguish the difference for when giving free association is non-viable. The issue here is that if you are the wrong group at the time let’s say a Catholic kicker the court could declare it is viable for him to start his own NFL to be a kicker, but also find it’s completely not viable for Jews to create their own excel.

If the NFL decided they don’t want Catholics playing in their league who do real Catholic things and fired Butker it would cause him real harm.

Of course, he's earned 18 million already, so, assuming he's saved it, he'd still be quite well off.

Yeah, but he's a 29-year-old elite kicker. He probably has $40 million left on the table with a normal career trajectory.

I’m sure that if he gets fired he’d have a professional conservative job paying 7 figures in less than a year.

An articulate NFL player who gets fired for being socially conservative has a professional social conservative speaker job already waiting for him.

Like most things, the solution is freedom in normal situations and government regulation in monopoly situations.

Agree. The broad strokes are obvious.

Doing that in practice is hard. Most businesses have some market power and even Americas tech firms have some competition. Excel is actually a great example. Some time around 2010 MSFT stock was trading in the 20’s and conventional wisdom was it’s a value trap and going out of business. Googlesheets were invented and free. Eventually people realized there are a lot of 50+ year old bankers and accountants that would rather write a check to Microsoft every year for $100 than learn a similar but slightly different software. Which is rational by those bankers as writing a Microsoft check for about $2k the rest of the career is a lot cheaper than learning new software (at $200 an hour that’s 10 hrs of work). And since the old people wouldn’t switch all the young people had to be compatible. At one point conventional wisdom was Excel was not a monopoly but I would say today it is a monopoly.

Even a fairly basic cake making business has a little market power. As it’s a pain point to travel an extra 15 minutes to find another baker.

I would say Excel = restricted Baker= not restricted most people would say is fair. But the exact line is far messier.

An interesting current case is the Tapestry/Capri merger. A quick synopsis is Tapestry is buying Capri which is basically a roll-up of mid-tier luxury brands. Handbags and shoes. I think these markets are highly competitive and fairly easy to enter (honestly Temu seems to have a lot of cheaper products that look the same). The Biden administration is suing to block the mergers saying antitrust/monopoly. I think this market is clearly in the baker category.

Disclosure: long and wrong. It’s trading $36. Deal closes at $56. If it breaks your probably talking a puke close to $20 and eventually trading around $25. I think the economics are clearly in favor of it closing. But it’s in a NY Court with a Biden appointed judge which is outside my personal Overton window of knowledge and I deeply distrust blue enclave courts now.

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